Hands off the Prevention Fund!

This week, Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) is due to offer an amendment to the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act that could effectively kill the Prevention and Public Health Fund. This would be a grave mistake.

Bear in mind that a major transformational element of the new health reform law – with broad bipartisan support – is its array of provisions promoting wellness, disease prevention and public health. These provisions will jumpstart America’s shift from our current sick care system into a real health care system – one designed to keep people healthy and out of the hospital in the first place.

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This emphasis on preventing chronic disease is critical to restraining costs and keeping down insurance premiums over the long term.

The Johanns amendment would cost $18 billion — most of it paid for by drastically cutting the Prevention and Public Health Fund. This attack on investments in prevention and wellness is the same old penny-wise-pound-foolish thinking that now makes America’s health care system so costly and ineffective.

The United States spends a staggering $2.3 trillion annually on health care – 16.5 percent of our gross domestic product, far more than any other country. We spend twice as much per capita on health care as European countries, but we are twice as sick with chronic disease.

The reason for this overspending and underperforming is clear: We have systematically neglected wellness and disease prevention. Currently, 95 percent of every health care dollar is spent treating illnesses and conditions after they occur. But we spend peanuts on prevention.

The good news is that, by ramping up our investment in preventing obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other costly conditions and illnesses, we have a big opportunity to improve the health of Americans and restrain health care spending.

To do this, the new health reform law makes significant new investments in wellness, prevention and public health. For example, it requires insurance companies to cover recommended preventive services with no co-payments or deductibles. It also ensures that seniors have access to free annual wellness visits and personalized prevention plans under Medicare.

A critical feature of the new law – essential to a sustainable push for wellness – is the Prevention and Public Health Fund. Health care is not limited to the doctor’s office. Where Americans live, work and go to school also has a profound effect on our health.